Abhiram Kuchibhotla

What was your favorite book as a child?

Oh, that’s a difficult question — I couldn’t possibly narrow it down to one! I started reading with periodicals like Champak, Tinkle, Amar Chitra Katha and Disney Adventures; and moved on to whatever I could get at the Scholastic Book Fairs at school (The Secrets of Droon, Geronimo Stilton, and titles like The 39 Clues and LEGO Exo-Force, which always looked so cool but were so expensive). I remember a lot of Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Harry Potter (of course — unavoidable, isn’t it?), Goosebumps, Sherlock Holmes, Artemis Fowl, and comics like Tintin and Asterix and Obelix, but the list goes on.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I squeezed my first story into this tiny B8-sized, 5-rupee Navneet notebook I used to carry around to scribble in when I was in the sixth grade; and it was a blatant ripoff of The Hunger Games. I think I was just obsessed with young adult sci-fi/thrillers at the time, but I cannot remember what on earth spurred me to write the story. I used to go to the British Library in Ahmedabad to borrow books at that time, and joined a writers’ group that met there on Sundays. And that was that, I guess. I met some of my closest friends there, and it was fun listening to their stories and sharing my own.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

Uh, I visited Scotland last year. It was a spectacular journey, of course, the scenery was incredible till the daylight lasted — and then I had to thread a rental car with four of my friends in it through valleys with narrow winding roads that dropped off into an abyss on one side and sprouted uneven craggy rock faces that loomed out of nowhere on the other. Exhilarating drive, though.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing? Why/why not?

Absolutely — mostly long instrumental-heavy albums that occupy the background without being too intrusive. A mix of ambient music that helps me drown out the noise and get in the zone (i.e., calm my neurodivergent brain). I think it might just be easier to name names — I love listening to Hans Zimmer, Chittibabu, Beach House, Gorillaz, Louie Zong, Tangerine Dream, Philip Glass, Tchaikovsky, Bach, The Caretaker, Erik Satie while I’m writing (or a playlist with lots of pieces that I’ve either heard in movies or video games and then tracked down on YouTube).